{"id":896714,"date":"2019-11-14T10:12:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T17:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=896714"},"modified":"2019-11-14T10:13:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T17:13:02","slug":"construction-contract-missing-apostrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/construction-contract-missing-apostrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"In This Case, The &#8220;Crux Of The Biscuit&#8221; Was The Missing Apostrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Keith Bishop | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.calcorporatelaw.com\/turning-to-the-case-of-the-missing-apostrophe\">Allen Matkins<\/a> | November 8, 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider the following provision of in a contract between a general contractor and a subcontractor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Ten percent (10%) of Subcontractor\u2019s contract amount shall be withheld and will be released 35 days after completion of subcontractors work.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the subcontractor abandons the job, the general contractor refused to pay the 10% retention even after the job is completed by another subcontractor.&nbsp; The subcontractor argued that the reference to &#8220;subcontractors&#8221; (no apostrophe) must mean any subcontractor, not just itself.&nbsp; Thus, it was entitled to payment of the retention when the replacement subcontractor finished the job.&nbsp; The general contractor took the position that &#8220;subcontractors&#8221; refers to the first sub-contractor and since it did not finish the job, it is owed nothing more.&nbsp; Who won?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trial court found for the general contractor and the Court of Appeal affirmed based on a literal interpretation.&nbsp;<em>Regency Midland Constr. v. Legendary Structures<\/em>, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 1110.&nbsp; The Court of Appeal supported its holding by referring to the purpose of the retention clause &#8211; to ensure proper performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;He said: &#8220;IT DOESN&#8217;T, &#8216;n YOU CAN&#8217;T!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why we use an apostrophe to denote possession is somewhat mysterious.&nbsp; The word is derived from two Greek words,&nbsp;\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc (meaning away from) and&nbsp;\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03c6\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd (meaning to turn away).&nbsp; Thus, an apostrophe is used to denote an elision.&nbsp; In&nbsp;<em>can&#8217;t,&nbsp;<\/em>for example, the apostrophe denotes the elision of&nbsp;<em>no.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em>But what does elision have to do with possession.&nbsp; In Old English, singular possessives were often formed by adding&nbsp;<em>es<\/em>&nbsp;to a word.&nbsp; For example, the singular possessive of the Old English word for ship,&nbsp;<em>s\u010bip<\/em>, is&nbsp;<em>s\u010bipes.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em>The theory is that the apostrophe was used to denote the elision of the e.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keith Bishop | Allen Matkins | November 8, 2019 Consider the following provision of in a contract between a general contractor and a subcontractor: &#8220;Ten percent (10%) of Subcontractor\u2019s contract amount shall be withheld and will be released 35 days after completion of subcontractors work.&#8221; After the subcontractor abandons the job, the general contractor refused&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/construction-contract-missing-apostrophe\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">In This Case, The &#8220;Crux Of The Biscuit&#8221; Was The Missing Apostrophe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,172],"tags":[9895,224,11002,157],"class_list":["post-896714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-contracts","category-construction-law-2","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction-contract","tag-retention-clause","tag-subcontractor","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In This Case, The &quot;Crux Of The Biscuit&quot; 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